'So far, so good:' Bay City interim city manager reflects on first week in post

View full sizeDana Muscott, the city clerk, stands in the doorway of a Detroit Safe Company safe in her future office at the Bay City City Hall. Muscott is serving as interim city manager after Robert Belleman departed for a job in Saginaw County,Clay Lomneth | MLive

BAY CITY, MI — Nope. Dana Muscott isn’t going to budge.

Bay City’s interim manager has officially carried the job title for less than a week, but she’s still not dropping any hints — at least publicly — about whether she’ll seek the community’s top post on a permanent basis.

Residents at Bay City Commission meetings have advocated she apply for the position. Commissioners have speculated about her candidacy in Internet comment forums.

Still, the answer is the same:

“I haven’t decided,” Muscott says.

The 13-year city clerk this week took over the job temporarily when longtime City Manager Robert Belleman departed for a new job as Saginaw County controller.

The managerial post isn’t completely foreign to her. For a decade, she’s handled the duties of deputy clerk, filling in for Belleman when he attended out-of-region conferences or went on vacation.

And, while Belleman didn’t officially begin in Saginaw until this week, he has been absent from Bay City because of both a vacation and conference getaway since Jan. 21, putting Muscott in charge during one of the city’s most significant transactions in recent years: the signing of a countywide water agreement.

Muscott says deciding on details following the new water deal will be among her top tasks as interim city manager.

Muscott says city staff met with members of the water system’s technical committee — an advisory group featuring representatives from Bay City and County, along with Essexville and Hampton Township — to review bids for engineering firms that could build the new water treatment plant. That decision could come Monday, she says.